What is Google data backup strategy? For the paranoid among us is there a practical way to make manual backups of files and folders in Google Drive?

One of the main purposes of cloud computing is that you don't have to worry about backups. Whereas if you store data on your own computer only, and your hard drive dies — that's it, the files are gone forever. With Google and other distributed cloud services, data are stored on many different servers, so even if one of Google's servers dies, your data are not impacted.